


The Woman in the Jar

by NextToSomething



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Thor (Movies) RPF
Genre: Codependency, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:50:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NextToSomething/pseuds/NextToSomething
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was an arrangement, a mutual partnership to fulfill the needs of both parties. She couldn't have known how completely she would lose control, until the day she decided to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woman in the Jar

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a dream to which a hapless friend of mine fell victim. I do not condone (or romanticize) this sort of relationship, though I also do not fault this sort of human weakness, in both characters' cases.

Indhara hadn’t been prepared for how little time it would take for her to pack her things. Her small collection of carpet bags looked smaller still in the vast living room, lousy in hardwood floor and Persian rugs. As it turned out, she had very little things of her own, anymore. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised by this, given the nature of their…arrangement. 

It had started innocently enough, as innocent as something like this could be. She had been much younger then, though it had only been a handful of years. It was funny how handing over her life had caused her to grow up so quickly.

She had poured her entire life’s savings into that show, leaving only enough money for airfare home when it all fell through. And it had. No matter how she had networked in school and after graduation, the turnout to the gallery was dismal, and the interest in the subject matter was attended even less. The Village Voice had called it “a strange sort of feminism,” but it had been more than that to her. Her artsy friends had warned her against the old-fashioned, traditional medium, but the oil paint was the only platform she could find that facilitated the deeply pigmented, visceral results she desired. 

The paintings were large and heavy, the huge gilded frames more costly than the paint and canvas. They were gaudy and ostentatious and priced accordingly. Large, dark depictions of women superimposed into different religious iconography-- saints and messiahs and wrathful deities and prophets and angels. The women’s shapes and sizes and colors varied wildly, but they all looked straight at the observer, with the same penetrating stare. Their lipstick was blood red and smeared, their eyeliner kohl black and running, their halos tarnished gold and cracked. Mussed hair, rumpled clothing. A hardened gaze that evoked nothing but guilt from the hapless person on the other side of the frame, regardless their views on religion.

But it was the jar that threw the show. The scant reviews called her unfocused, too sure of her pointing finger and not sure enough of the direction she pointed it. It was because of the jar.

In the last room, surrounded by the largest of the paintings, was a small table with an old pickle jar set atop it. The label was only mostly ripped off, and the glass smudged. Inside was a small likeness of her, Indhara Malik, dressed in a recreation of the outfit she had chosen for the opening of the gallery, arms down by her side, eyes facing forward.

The Woman in the Jar.

It was the piece in which Indhara had placed most of her pride. Others had called it an immature addition reminiscent of a poseur art student; sloppy, incongruous, downright weird. It didn’t make sense to anyone else why she included it in the show, and people left uneasy after seeing it. It was important to her, however. A piece that had haunted her dreams so often she felt she had to bring it to fruition if she ever wanted a peaceful night of sleep again. She refused to remove it.

By the end of the night, however, the plane ride home seemed almost inevitable. Glass enclosures that haunted her dreams or paintings that had taken endless hours didn't pay the bills. Having her work appreciated was only half of the battle; she also needed money. So when the gallery manager stopped her, she was expecting the worst. 

"There's a man interested in buying, Indhara," he'd said. 

The words surprised her to the point that she was unable to hide just how green she was. 

"Really?" Her voice came out higher pitched than she'd meant. "Which one?" The illusion of artistic aloofness was smashed by her eager questions. 

The manager's eyes twinkled. "All of them. Everything." 

The words staggered her and she pressed a hand to her swimming head. Everything? 

"He's in the back."

When she made it to the last room, everyone else had left. He was standing, back turned, in the center of the room, his hand resting casually on the pickle jar. The action shocked her. 

"Hey! You aren’t supposed to touch that!" 

He turned towards her, and she stopped dead. He was that actor! He was wearing a fitted suit and seemed to overpower the room with his simply standing there. His eyes narrowed at her words and she felt like the air was being siphoned out of her lungs. He was scrutinizing her, seeming to take notes. Of what, she couldn't know. Something switched in his eyes, as though he had made some sort of decision. 

"Are you going to stop me?" he asked, daring her. 

She knew, from those first words, that she was lost to him. He was sizing her up, taking her in. His voice was black and sandy like the ashen earth at the base of a roiling volcano. His hand stayed on the jar as he wet his lips, his eyes traveling from one end of her body to the other. Touching the jar, taking control. 

Completely lost. 

The night found her willingly trapped against the wall of the stairwell leading to her then apartment, one of his hands in her inky black hair. Bringing his other hand to her face, using the pad of his thumb to press into the swell of her bottom lip. Purposefully smearing her crimson lipstick like that of the women in the gallery. And the next morning, as he slid his suit jacket back on and tightened the knot of his slightly wrinkled tie, he appealed to the failed business major in her by offering her a kind of partnership in exchange for, what would become, her freedom. 

And these years later, she was still his. Living in the apartment he had procured for her, with the gloriously windowed rooftop studio space, filled with furniture and bric a brac bought with his money, living the life she had agreed to. A kept woman. 

The innocence of the situation had come in the guise of mutual artistic appreciation. She didn't have to worry about the bills, about staying on top of that sky high New York City rent. She only needed focus on her art. Leave the rest to him. A marriage of sorts, only the least romantic marriage Indhara had ever considered. She was to be wedded to her craft. Undeterred, focused. 

He had already pledged his commitment to his mistress, his own booming acting career. This is where the partnership applied. She was to be his, for his needs, his very specific needs, when he should see fit to visit. And he could visit quite often. 

It was a seedy arrangement that heated her blood. It was something she had never dreamed happened outside the worn paper covers of the most erotic of novels, and yet, in her own life simple life, she played the starring role. 

And it consumed her. He ignited her in ways she hadn't even dared hope. He was mastery and control, venom swirled into dusky red wine. When he came to her, when he would have her, she lost sight of everything, everything but him. What in theory was an arrangement between dedicated artists had become this driving addiction to be had, to be taken. To feel his long fingers gripping her flesh, the stretch and pull of him within her, and the black as pitch sound of his voice as he bound her more tightly within his spell. He had renamed her, even; Indhara, mine. It called her dash herself upon the rocks; Indhara, mine. 

The gentleman was for the interviews, for the red carpet, for the fans. The rapacious lover, the excess and power and dominance-- all of that was for her. 

And it had to stop. 

The situation was free of irony; her artistic career had indeed thrived. She poured the dark smoke of her life into her work and, almost entirely on her own name, had made something of her craft. Nearly to the point of rendering their arrangement unnecessary. 

It was she, Indhara, mine, that was no longer thriving. This wasn't what their agreement was supposed to become; she was not meant to be possessed. And yet, possessed she was. She wanted out, she needed out. 

She reached for her last remaining belonging. The Woman in the Jar. All her other paintings, the other works she had created and he enjoyed over the years, were displayed elsewhere. But the jar remained here, at his insistence. Almost as a reminder of his rule over her. A constant barb in the ribs. She'd take it, again as a reminder, but this time, of why she couldn't go back. 

"Planning a holiday?"

The jar was almost smashed upon the floor, before she caught herself. 

Tom.

He rarely surprised her like this. He was usually gracious enough to give ample notice for her to clear her schedule, make arrangements. It was only the most desperate of times, so few and far between, that he would arrive unannounced. They had always been her favorite encounters. 

She turned to face him, and her throat clamped shut at the stormy look on his face. The volcano was close to erupting. He always came to her in a suit, so many layers of control to unravel, and a tie to hold her, if he saw fit. This time was no different, and her mouth watered at the sight of him. Tall and lean, his shape and cool confidence forcing the fabrics to shine finer than they ought. Already her determination was waning. 

"You weren’t thinking of leaving, Indhara, mine?" He stalked closer to her, the hard soles of his expensive shoes rapping loudly on the lacquered floor. "Not without telling me." 

She clutched the jar to her chest, her not-so-carefully-laid plans falling down around her. 

"I was," she said, her voice barely a whisper. She tried again, stronger this time. "I am." 

His eyes darkened then, and she felt that familiar compressing sensation take hold. He reached for the jar, and easily pried it from her hands. 

“Let me help you pack.”

Indhara hadn’t expected him to say that. She knew it wouldn’t be as easy as all that; there was a reason this wicked game had lasted for so many years. He enjoyed keeping her as much as she enjoyed being his. He’d never forfeited before. 

He watched her for a moment longer, then walked to the far wall. He placed the jar on a high shelf, out of her reach.

“This, of course, is mine.” He turned the jar further, so the small Indhara might look out upon the scene below. “I bought it.”

Coming from any other man, his words might sound petulant, or cruel, perhaps even condescending. The welcome of a challenge. 

But from Tom’s mouth, it was a statement of fact. He looked from the jar to Indhara, his eyes intent on her, not quite predatory, and not quite amorous. His tongue flitted across his lips and his nostrils flared. 

“I have no such monetary hold on you, despite what you might think.” Her heart felt like a stone in her chest, bruising her from the inside as it beat against her sternum, as his treacle thick voice slowly moved across the room to her. “You are not beholden to me in such a straightforward fashion.”

He followed his voice, making slow pace back to her. She always felt small in his all consuming confidence, but surrounded by her sad army of bags in the middle of this spacious room, she felt minuscule.

His long gait brought him to her more quickly than she wanted, and he towered over her, looking down his nose at her trembling, crumbling resolve. His lips were parted, and she could almost taste his dense arousal. Her breaths were coming in soft almost-pants, and her fingernails bit into her palms. She was so easily played by him, taken in by his voice and his faculty, and it made her veins sting with the boiling blood that flowed within them. One errant breath hissed a quavering note between her teeth and his eyes flashed in small victory. He kept his chin tipped up, away from her, as he reached to loosen his tie. A small adjustment, though after years of possession, she knew his tells. She ticked a small victory of her own.

“You are free to go,” he said, his voice low, though not in warning. He was not challenging her, or baiting her, or laying a test. He spoke as if he knew something she did not. 

She was dizzy with waiting for the other shoe to drop, so she bent and picked up on of her bags from the floor.

“I wonder,” he began, his voice still measured and sure. “Had I not caught you, how far might you have made it?”

Her eyes widened in disbelief. Did he honestly think she was incapable of providing for herself? Was she really so powerless in his eyes?

“Not like that, darling. I would never suffer a girl, a woman, incapable of living without me.”

He trailed a hand down her arm holding the bag. She didn’t so much flinch at his touch as lean into it. 

“It is your willingness to let me provide for you that so intoxicates me,” he whispered, as if telling a very great secret. Indhara couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t.

“No,” he continued. “I wonder how long this flat would have been vacant, how far down the street you would have gotten, before you came back to me.” His hand trailed lower, crouching slightly to wrap his fingers around hers on the handle of the bag. He brought his face very close to hers, his mouth still parted, his pupils dilated so wide that the usually sea glass colored irises were nearly completely black. She released the bag to his hold. 

“Ah,” he chuckled. “Not very far at all, then.” He set the bag aside, a very satisfied turn to his mouth. 

She turned from him, though she didn’t leave. She had to see anything but him, just for a moment, just to gain some fragment of control. He pressed the long line of his body into her back, and she was not without him. 

“There is no shame in this, Indhara, mine.” His voice crooned into her hair, heating her scalp. He tickled light fingers up her stiffened arms. “There is no shame in belonging to me.” She relaxed, only a fraction, letting him support her only a little, and he pushed further. 

“You are mine,” he said, and her heart faltered. “You were mine from first I saw you.” He pressed hard lips into the hollow of her temple, and she voiced a sigh at the contact. “Darling, you will always be mine.”

She was weak with fighting her natural inclinations, and turned into him. Her hands fumbled, seeking some sort of purchase. He had won, as he always did, and she could focus on nothing but her want of him. She was pulling him by his silken lapels in the direction of her bedroom.

“No,” he barked, pulling out of her grasp, and he tugged the suit jacket from his shoulders. His voice was obsidian again, dark and hard as the night. “I’ll have you here.”

He pulled her to him, pressing her brutally into his body, before conquering her mouth with his. She gripped at his shoulders, unable to attempt anything but staying grounded in the eruption. He brought them clumsily to the floor, cushioned only by the overlap of the scattered Persian rugs. He was over her, holding her so tightly, it was as if his fingers were created only to bruise her flesh. She wanted to be closer still. They were ravenous, dangerous together, teetering close to the cliff’s edge. His hot, panting breaths where dampening her wavy hair, and her cries of frustration and abandon were not to be muted by the strewn rugs.

There was no patience to be found in the tangle of limbs on the floor, as clothing was rucked, tugged and pulled aside, bearing snippets of skin, only enough to feed the urgency. Tom fell between her quaking thighs, and placed a punishing bite on that tender muscle before dipping lower still. She cried out at the intimate collision of flesh to flesh, and he expertly drove her arousal higher still with nips and flicks and deep, damp caresses. She arched away from the floor, the carpet burning what skin it touched, and he dug his fingers into the soft of her hips to stay with her. He meant her to rend.

She didn’t often scream, eyes squeezed shut, teeth bared. She usually had more control than that. But as her body felt torn in several directions at once, she thought her voice might give out well before her need for it would. He was pulling at her still as her body pulsated with her surrender, and she clawed him up her body, intent on having more. His movements were graceless as he would only spare one hand to push his trousers out of the way. His other stayed gripped in her hair, anchoring her head to the palm of his hand. His voice was no longer beautiful, but raspy and jagged as he chanted her gifted name like a mantra: “Indhara, mine, oh, Indhara, mine.”

They both called out in oversensitive anguish when he was finally, finally seated deep within her. He stayed tensed and motionless for agonizing seconds before her patience shattered.

“Tom! Tom, please!” 

He slammed into her then, setting a merciless pace. She raked nails across his back in an ineffective attempt of holding on to him. He arched away from her, and grabbed the leg of the nearby desk, muscles flexed as he pulled upon this anchor to gain the purchase he desired, bringing him harder into her. 

She pushed herself up, clinging to his tensed body, and he wrapped a steeled arm around her body in a vice-hard grip. From over his shoulder, she could see them dimly reflected in the panes of the French door leading to her studio, his near ivory skin stark against the burnt caramel of hers. A beautiful contrast. In these moments, when their bodies were hopelessly twined, she could imagine they were equals, that he was as consumed by her as she was him. She could forget the obsession, the unhealthy dependency to which she had fallen prey. She could pretend he loved her. 

He shifted the angle of his hips, and their voices mixed again in a clattering chorus as he pummeled them over that cliff. He collapsed onto her, and she held him as tightly as her quivering arms would allow. After two, then three deep, greedy breaths, he held her even more tightly, no shake to his exerted muscles. She couldn’t loosen her grip on him.

“I won’t have you leaving me,” he said, his voice humming from somewhere in the ebony waves of her hair. “I’ll never allow it.” She could hear his anger now, for the first time since he’d seen the bags. The finality to his voice seemed small next to the roar that was building within her mind.

She almost cried at the realization, as it fell over her as a heavy curtain.

He would never have to worry over her leaving; he would never walk in to find her bags packed again. 

She was, and forever would be, the woman in the jar.


End file.
